Back in 2016, Will Smith made a rare confession: he was disappointed that his 2015 film Concussion hadn’t made a bigger impact on American audiences. The film, written and directed by Peter Landesman, was about the traumatic brain injuries that football players incur while playing the aggressive sport. And while it did just fine with critics, it had little to no impact on the N.F.L., failing to spark the conscious revolution that Smith was likely hoping for. Football is still about as lucrative and popular as ever—despite the “overwhelming” scientific evidence behind the damaging side effects players face, Smith told Vanity Fair. “It’s something that we really need to take a look at . . . I was surprised that people were absolutely like, ‘Nope, I’m not stopping watching football, so I don’t want to know.’”

Considering the hype around this Sunday’s upcoming Super Bowl—undaunted by worries about players’ health—Smith was absolutely right. But while Concussion may have missed the public-service mark, a new short film titled Concussion Protocol—directed by Josh Begley and produced by Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras—might be the thing that makes viewers care about the true dangers of football.

In Concussion Protocol, a short that clocks in at around five minutes and was published on the Intercept Thursday, Begley documents every single concussion that happened in the N.F.L. this season. The film is grim but hypnotic, showcasing the aggressive hits that football players take on the field. According to the N.F.L.’s own statistics, there have been 281 recorded concussions this season, the most since the N.F.L. started recording the injuries six years ago. In an essay, Begley explained his methodology for tracking the concussions, adding that he wasn’t making “an argument for ending football.”

On the Intercept podcast Intercepted, Begley expounded on this, saying he largely wanted to analyze the way people watch football, how it’s often a visual clash of “people in pain alongside the beauty of the game.” He cites, for example, the strange truth behind fantasy football: “The folks who win fantasy football are the people who bet correctly on who’s not gonna get injured,” he says. “The news about football is largely injury news.”

Also on the podcast, former N.F.L. player Donté Stallworth says that watching an early cut of the film was so difficult that he could barely get past the first minute. “It was gut-wrenching,” he recalls. “My stomach was curling the whole time.”

The short is certainly difficult to watch, a brutal tapestry of the game’s most violent moments. Begley reverses some of the hits and plays them in slow motion, effectively creating “a violent ballet,” as Intercepted host Jeremy Scahill puts it.

“I hope to make strange what has for many of us become normative: the spectacular, devouring moment of a football hit that knocks a player out cold,” Begley explained in his piece.

While it likely won’t be enough to stop people from watching the Super Bowl, the video has already been making the rounds on Twitter, providing an eye-opening look at the grim reality behind the game.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post mis-identified the title of the documentary. It is Concussion Protocol.

The Women Behind Miramar: A Who’s Who in Portraits

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Photograph by Art Streiber.

Allison Anders, Director

A force of nature, director Allison Anders spearheaded the Miramar Women’s Summit. She got her start in the independent-movie scene in Los Angeles, where she directed Border Radio to success. After the movie’s release in 1987, Anders’s rise continued fortuitously. She went on to earn a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and, by 2001, directed Don Cheadle to an Emmy nomination for his role in her film Things Behind the Sun. Anders was also among the first group of recipients to receive the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowships screenwriting award for Lost Highway. Since then, she’s directed episodes for a variety of hit television shows including Sex and the City,The L Word,Southland,Orange Is the New Black,Murder in the First and the CW’s latest juggernaut, “Riverdale.”